


unmixed color on the wing

by Hinterlands



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blossoming Friendship, Character Development, Gen, and now they attempt to reconcile, ataashi is scared of cass for a very long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinterlands/pseuds/Hinterlands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adaar; Cassandra; butterflies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	unmixed color on the wing

The first spring thaw creeps upon Skyhold subtly, in random spates of warmer days, the softening of the frost-limned soil of the training yards, long fingers of sunlight combing over the earth, coaxing soft green shoots from slumber with a patience as old as time itself. For the residents of the fortress, it is a time of exultation; the passes will soon run with meltwater, the roadways clear, and trade may resume—their winter stock has stretched far, in no small part due to meticulous planning over the long but permissible chill of the autumn months, but even this must run dry eventually, and the anxiety curving between the ribs of the fortress’ residents grows lesser, leaner, with the assurance of the sun.

Some odd snowfall is to be expected, of course, this far up the mountainside, and what little of it there is has been shoveled aside in humps and hills, left to melt into the frost-cracked soil at the corners of the courtyard, insulated from within. The air on these days is temperate, if not warm, and redolent of wet earth and green growing things, slim blades of grass reaching up towards the cloud-scudded sky. The gardens are not lush, but they are growing, seeds tucked within their pots and planters just beginning to awaken, the hardier and quicker plants already shot up towards the sun, and beginning to bud.

It is here, then, that Cassandra chooses to retire to, late one afternoon, a leatherbound serial clutched tightly within one hand; spring is not yet fully upon them, and so the air remains mercifully clear of the pollutant pollen that forces her eyes to itch and water and her nose to run with a thin, clear mucus, and she may indulge the baser, instinctual want for the sun’s warmth that stirs within her after the long, dark winter with no repercussions.

(Beyond that, the gardens are quiet, normally frequented only by visiting nobility touring the grounds and the few souls that work within their confines; the fewer witnesses there are to her _hobby_ , the better.)

She did _not_ , however, account for the Inquisitor.

The vashoth’s presence is relatively inoffensive, of course, as she seems to be doing little to make herself conspicuous (or, _more_ conspicuous; the Inquisitor is a prodigious woman in every sense of the word, standing a good two heads taller than Cassandra herself, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, and as a matter of course is woefully incapable of making herself any less a person of note), merely plopped down a bench a ways away from the gazebo, facing the precise rows of pots lining the low wall with shoulders slumped, massive hands seemingly cradled idly in her lap. Still, her presence inspires a brief jolt of unease; while the Inquisitor— _Ataashi_ , Cassandra reminds herself suddenly and forcefully, she prefers to be called Ataashi—is by no means an aggressive or particularly obtrusive person, she seems to have an issue with Cassandra’s presence even on the best of days, and will often, in the Seeker’s experience, take pains to put distance between them.

(This is unsurprising, given Cassandra’s unwarranted aggression towards her when she first drifted towards consciousness in that dank, nitre-lined cell, the Anchor drooling a sickly, verdant light into the dimness of the room, but it is still an unpleasant notion, to be feared with such apparent vehemence.)

Still, Ataashi does not seem to have noticed her as of yet, sitting with her hands clasped between her knees, eyes closed lightly, head tilted towards a ray of watery sunlight, the smallest of smiles playing at her lips; the expression is thoroughly catlike, and not a little ridiculous on a woman of her size. Cassandra pulls in the softest of breaths, and, quite purposefully, begins to pick her way through the garden towards an adjacent—and blessedly unoccupied—low stone bench. Ataashi’s left ear twitches faintly as the Seeker’s quiet footfalls near and pass, her eyes cracking open, though she does not stir otherwise. Either the vashoth is dozing, or this can be counted as some form of tentative progress; Cassandra prefers to think of it as the latter.

* * *

 

There is a stolid silence condensed between them, for a time, as Cassandra props one leg upon the opposite knee, cracks the pages of her book and endeavors to lose herself in the thorny print and pervasive scent of fresh-pressed parchment; eventually, however, Ataashi makes a queer, throaty _sound,_ and the Seeker glances up, the ghost of a scowl tugging the corner of her lip back for the crack in her concentration. The massive vashoth appears to be— _laughing,_ of all things, quietly and convulsively, in tiny hiccups, lips pulled back from teeth in the approximation of a grin. Cassandra straightens her spine minutely, straining to see over the ridge of Ataashi’s shoulder, catch a glimpse of whatever has her behaving so strangely—

Butterflies. Only a few, but butterflies nonetheless, bafflingly early in the season, wings mere bright smears of white and red and gold as they float between barely-grown plants. One has landed on Ataashi’s left shoulder, wings just tickling her neck as they flutter reflexively, another perched atop her knee. And, as Cassandra watches, as Ataashi turns her face forward again, one flits through the weak rays of sun to land directly atop the vashoth’s crooked nose, wings beating languidly, just kissing the skin beneath Ataashi’s eyes. A soft, guttural laugh issues from the vashoth’s mouth as she gingerly raises a hand, sliding her finger beneath the butterfly’s grasping legs more gently than Cassandra believed it possible for her to be, allowing it to rest just against her knuckle as her eyes crinkle in a soft-edged smile.

A strangled sound escapes the Seeker before she can quite clamp her teeth on it, part snort and part startlement, and Ataashi’s head fairly _whips_ around, hand clenching and displacing the bright-winged insect, which flutters off in what could conceivably pass for a huff. The vashoth makes no move to shift away or gain her feet, merely meeting the Seeker’s eyes with a wary sort of steadiness, lips pursed, jaw tense. Cassandra is, again, momentarily stricken, not so much by the sheer _oddness_ of the scene, but by how little she realizes she _knows_ about this woman, the one she has called Herald, the woman whose ascension she has had a part, however small, in aiding, accelerating. The appointment is certainly not undeserved, and yet…

 _(Her surname is Adaar,_ Cassandra begins in her mind, because that knowledge is common, cheap, and easy. _She was raised on the eastern coast of the Free Marches. She does not speak the common tongue, and abhors being treated as though she is somehow lesser or unintelligent because of it. She traveled with a number of mercenary companies over as many years, and has made a name for herself as a blade for hire. She is polite, and studious, when the situation requires it, or so Josephine has said. She is an asset in battle. She is—she is—)_

Kind? Trustworthy? Valiant? Superficial descriptions applied by an outsider, nothing more; it dawns on Cassandra that she knows nothing of Ataashi but the scraps she has been in close enough proximity to observe, what few things she has been told by the advisors. Ataashi’s gaze is unwavering, and Cassandra forces herself to think back, to remember what she can of the early days, tumultuous as they were.

The vashoth wielded a two-handed greatsword appropriately sized for a Qunari, and still does. In battle, she was implacable, cutting through foes without apparent remorse; this slots in neatly with her history of employment, but there’s a watery smear of memory lingering at the back of the Seeker’s skull; whenever Ataashi would kneel down to strip a freshly-dead bandit of their valuables, she would murmur something to them, and the shape of her mouth would make it sound an apology, and those gore-smeared fingers would meander up, once the deed was done, and close the corpse’s eyes, fit the jaw together if it lolled open in death. She seemed not to relish the killing, but went to it with a sort of flat-eyed resignation.

That’s something, a speck, a kernel, and there are more details, now, standing sharp and stark amidst the haze of weeks and months past; the edge of childish delight in her laughter when they observed a pair of young fennecs wrestling at the edge of their camp’s firelight one evening; her (at times, _damnably_ ) keen interest in harvesting all the herbs they came across, no matter how inopportune the time; the tinge of sad familiarity in her eyes as she swept them over the newly-secured crossroads, the dead and noisily dying, copper reek thick in the air, pungent; the _heaviness_ apparent in her after Haven, and the way she kept light on the balls of her feet, the tension that had not gone out of her for weeks, still lingered somewhat in the line of her jaw.

Cassandra blinks; Ataashi is still watching her, face tilted away slightly, an uncertain slant to her mouth, as though the Seeker were some great cat all coiled and primed to pounce, and the vashoth a frightened mouse. Cassandra takes in a breath, and forces herself to break the gaze, frowning to herself.

A moment of silence; a slow exhalation. Cassandra speaks, and the words do not blister her tongue as they once might have. “It…has occurred to me that I may have judged you too quickly,” she says, and there is sincerity buried within the folds of it; she has judged, and harshly, and taken offense at what is certainly justified. “I…Ido not wish to make you feel as though you must defend yourself from me. I know that it is difficult for you to speak, and I am not so good at it myself, but I feel that if we are to continue to work together, we must…come to some understanding.” Another breath. “And I am willing to try if you are as well.”

She meets Ataashi’s eyes firmly as she speaks; not as a challenge but as an offer, and, as the vashoth chews the words over, the latent tension in that heavy jaw seems to ease somewhat, and, for the first time that the Seeker can remember, Ataashi smiles at her, small and tempered.

It is not much. But it _is_ a start.

**Author's Note:**

> T (sweettasteofbitter on ao3 and tumblr) shot me a prompt about a month ago that involved butterflies of the non-romantic kind; I've chosen to interpret it literally, and use it as an excuse to expound upon one of my favored 'Quizzes.
> 
> (Title comes from "Blue-Butterfly Day," by Robert Frost.)


End file.
